Matthew 19:4-9

19:4 He answered, “Have you not read that from the beginning the Creator made them male and female, ¹  19:5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? ²  19:6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” 19:7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?” ³  19:8 Jesus ⁴  said to them, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because of your hard hearts, ⁵  but from the beginning it was not this way. 19:9 Now I say to you that whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another commits adultery.”

¹ sn A quotation from Gen 1:27; 5:2.

² sn A quotation from Gen 2:24.

³ tc ‡ Although the majority of witnesses (B C W 078 087 ˹³ 33 Ï sy^p,h) have αὐτήν (authn, “her”) after the infinitive ἀπολῦσαι (apolusai, “to divorce”), a variant lacks the αὐτήν. This shorter reading may be due to assimilation to the Markan parallel, but since it is attested in early and diverse witnesses (א D L Z Θ Ë¹ 579 700 pc lat) and since the parallel verse (Mark 10:4) already departs at many points, the shorter reading seems more likely to be original. The pronoun has been included in the translation, however, for clarity. NA²⁷ includes the word in brackets, indicating reservations regarding its authenticity.

⁴ tc A few important mss (א Φ pc) have the name “Jesus” here, but it is probably not original. Nevertheless, this translation routinely specifies the referents of pronouns to improve clarity, so that has been done here.

⁵ tn Grk “heart” (a collective singular).